The rapidly evolving networking industry introduces new standards and innovation by independent software vendors (ISVs) and independent hardware vendors (IHVs) at a rate that often outpaces the development schedule of operating system providers. Consequently, when ISVs and IHVs want to implement a new functionality that is not supported by a computer's operating system, they must develop a customized application which typically requires replacing substantial, if not all, portions of existing operating system networking services.
For example, if an ISV wants to implement some security aspect or proprietary extension to the networking software that is unsupported by the operating system, there are several pieces of software that must first be written by the ISV or another third party to enable connectivity by the new device. The ISV must provide a driver to manage the device, connectivity software that runs whenever the device is enabled, and various experience elements, which determine how connection and disconnection will occur, how connection status will be reported, how ISV profiles will be installed and propagated.